Month: July 2017

The weather in New Zealand has been extremely cold and stormy the last few weeks, meaning that staying indoors by the fire and baking has been one of my favourite pastimes. This weeks post is quite similar to my lemon drizzle cake which you can find here, but it uses yoghurt, which helps to keep the cake incredibly moist and is perfect for if you have yoghurt that is about to reach its expiry date (which happens to me quite often). I first made this cake a few months ago, but this is actually the first time I’ve made it as a loaf and I absolutely love how it turned out. I actually preferred it as a loaf and will definitely be making it in this tin from now on. Let’s get started!

You Will Need:

1 1/2 cups plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain yoghurt

1 cup white sugar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 cup canola oil

Lemon Syrup:

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup white sugar

Glaze:

1 cup icing sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and line a loaf tin with grease proof paper.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the yoghurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla essence.

Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Using a spatula, carefully fold the oil into the mixture until well combined.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and place in the oven for 50 minutes or until cooked.

While the cake is in the oven, start preparing your syrup by pouring the lemon juice and sugar into a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.

When the loaf is cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin forabout 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the loaf from the tin and place onto a wire rack over a cookie sheet.

Using a skewer, poke a few holes in the top of the loaf and pour the syrup over the top.

Allow the cake to cool completely before preparing your glaze.

To make the glaze, mix together the icing sugar and lemon juice and spread over the top of the cake.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe and I would loveto see your recreations 🙂

Last week I went to The Warehouse to stock up on a few balls of wool and as I was heading to the checkout, I noticed some bags of mini Terrys chocolate orange pieces for only $3 and immediately picked one up as this is one of my favourite chocolates. I really wanted to use them in a blog post, but couldn’t quite decide what to make so I eventually settled on cupcakes as these are one of my absolute favourite things to bake. Let’s get started!

You Will Need:

3/4 cup & 2 tablespoons plain flour

1/4 cup & 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1/2 cup boiling water

Icing:

100g butter, softened

1 1/2 cup icing sugar

1-2 tablespoons milk

2 drops red food colouring

3 drops yellow food colouring

1-2 teaspoons orange essence

What To Do:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius and line a cupcake tin with paper cases.

Sift your dry ingredients into a large bowl, then add both sugars and stir well.

Add the egg, vanilla essence, milk and oil and beat with an electric mixer until combined.

Pour in the boiling water and mix until just combined. Keep in mind that the mixture will be very runny.

Transfer the mixture into a large jug and pour into the cupcake cases until they are 3/4 full.

Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until cooked.

Remove from the oven and place onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, place your butter into a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer on a high speed until smooth.

Add the icing sugar and mix slowly until a smooth icing starts to form.

Add the orange essence and milk and mix on a high speed until you are happy with the consistency.

Add in the food colouring and mix well until a solid colour forms.

Using a star nozzle, pipe the icing into a swirl on the centre of each cooled cupcake.

Place one piece of Terrys chocolate orange into the centre of the icing.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe and I would love to see your recreations 🙂

On a Sunday afternoon back in 2010, I was flicking through various TV channels looking for something to watch when I stumbled across an episode of Pretty Little Liars. It was about the third or fourth episode of the first season and although I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening on the screen, I absolutely loved the episode and decided that I was going to continue to watch each episode. However, after about a month I ended up missing about 5 episodes and when I finally had time to watch it again, so much had happened in the episodes I had missed and I was so lost, so I ended up not bothering with it. That was until early last year, when TVD was on a break and I wanted to find and new program to watch. I spent a few months watching from the start of season 1 to the middle of season 7 and I was absolutely hooked.

I was quite sad to learn that the last episode of season 7 was the series finale but also waited eagerly to see what would happen to the girls in the final 10 episodes. If you haven’t watched any episodes of Pretty Little Liars, essentially it is about 4 girls called Hanna, Aria, Emily and Spencer who receive threatening text messages from someone under the alias ‘A’ after their friend Alison mysteriously disappears during a sleepover one night. The series follows the girls trying to figure out who could be sending these messages and why they are sending them. It is a series filled with love, death, mystery and countless unanswerable questions.

The series finale aired last Wednesday night in New Zealand and I was both sad and excited to watch the episode. I was excited to find out who the mysterious Uber A would be and what would happen to all the characters but after watching the episode, if I am completely honest, I was left feeling quite confused and slightly disappointed. Although I felt it was a good end to the series and I was really happy with where the girls ended up in the end, there was no shock when the big reveal finally happened and I found that so many questions that had popped up during the series were left unanswered. I later found out that the writers had to change the actor who turned out to be Uber A last minute, as the original actor was unavailable to film the scenes. Even though there were so many questions that hadn’t been answered by the end of the series, I feel that it wouldn’t be Pretty Little Liars without a little mystery.